Posts Tagged ‘North Carolina’

The North Carolina Senate Wednesday voted down legislation to repeal the controversial law known simply as the “bathroom bill,” months after the measure limiting LGBT protections triggered an economic backlash for the state.

The Senate voted 32-16 against the repeal effort before voting by the same margin to adjourn, ending the special session two days after the Charlotte City Council gutted an ordinance that in March led the state’s General Assembly to pass House Bill (HB) 2. The state House also adjourned without voting.

The repeal legislation, Senate Bill 4, caused new turbulence by imposing a six-month moratorium on local government measures affecting public accommodations and access to restrooms.

According to a statement from the North Carolina Republican Party, not a single Democrat voted to repeal HB2 on a straight up and down vote.

“It’s even more absurd that Govenor-elect Cooper privately pressured Senate Democrats to reject the deal while publicly calling on lawmakers to support a repeal,” said NCGOP Chairman Robin Hayes. “This is nothing more than smoke and mirrors and the people of North Carolina deserve more than the lies and collusion that Roy Cooper has fashioned himself accustomed to.”

Republicans wanted the provision out of concern that cities would enact Charlotte-like measures that could survive under the incoming Democratic administration in the state capital.

However, Democrats pushed back against the moratorium, calling it only a partial repeal of HB2.

“This wasn’t the deal,” said Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Charlotte Democrat. “This bill breaks this deal. Charlotte would have not repealed its ordinance if this was the deal.”

The Senate came back in session Wednesday evening with Senate Speaker Phil Berger suggesting — as a last chance — that the HB2 repeal efforts be split into two segments: the repeal itself in one vote and then a cooling off period in a separate vote.

After the repeal vote was attempted, Berger suggested sending the bill to rules committee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Brown then tried to have the Senate vote again. His motion was tabled before the body voted to adjourn.

“Tonight the North Carolina Senate voted to keep the protections provided by our privacy law, HB2, in place,” said Tami Fitzgerald, NC Values Coalition Executive Director in a statement. “We continue to encourage our leaders to never sacrifice the privacy, safety, or freedom of young girls by forcing them to use the bathroom, shower, or change clothes with grown men just to satisfy the demands of greedy businesses, immoral sports organizations, or angry mobs.”

The special session came about after a bitter election battle that Republican Gov. Pat McCrory lost to Democrat Roy Cooper.

Cooper said he was “disappointed” that the legislature “had the chance to do the right thing for North Carolina and they failed.”

“This was our best chance,” he said. “It cannot be our last chance.”

During the campaign, Democrats hammered McCrory over the law he signed and its fallout — job losses, canceled concerts and sporting events. The state’s Republican leaders said at the time they were willing to consider repealing the law if Charlotte acted first to undo its expanded antidiscrimination ordinance. But the mayor and most council members, with the support of gay rights groups, had been unwilling to do so in the name of equality.

Yet after McCrory conceded, the Democrat-controlled council in Charlotte abruptly moved to roll back the measure. McCrory kept to his word and called a special session, but accused Democrats of playing politics all along by keeping Charlotte from nixing its “overreaching” ordinance earlier.

“The sudden reversal, with little notice after the gubernatorial election has ended, sadly proves this entire issue, originated by the political left, was all about politics at the expense of Charlotte and the entire state of North Carolina,” McCrory said in a video message.

Some social conservatives still urged against repealing the state law. Even the fact lawmakers were called back to Raleigh by McCrory a month before their 2017 session’s start was challenged.

“There is no extraordinary circumstance,” said Rep. Jeff Collins, R-Nash, “other than the extraordinary hubris of a city council telling us we have to act by a certain date.” Monday’s action by the Charlotte council was contingent on HB2’s repeal by Dec. 31.

HB2 was best known for requiring transgender people to use restrooms and other facilities corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate rather than their gender identity.

It also limits statewide protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in public accommodations and employment, and it reinforced a prohibition on local governments from raising minimum wage. Local governments are also prevented from enacting nondiscrimination measures that would go further than state law.

LGBT groups, which had fought any deal with legislators earlier this year to do away with the Charlotte ordinance, got on board in the name of nixing HB2.

“Full and complete repeal of HB2 is the only acceptable outcome,” Stephen Peters of Human Rights Campaign said Tuesday in an email.

The problem with the whole “Social Justice” Argument which the Liberal Democrats love to advance on behalf of “Cross-Dressing Johnny” is the fact that, according to at least one of the leading experts in Psychiatry in the whole world, Transgenderism is NOT a physical condition, like skin pigmentation.

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and former psychiatrist–in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, who has studied transgendered people for 40 years, said it is a scientific fact that “transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men.”

All such people, he explained in an article for The Witherspoon Institute, “become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’”

Dr. McHugh, who was psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital for 26 years, the medical institute that had initially pioneered sex-change surgery – and later ceased the practice – stressed that the cultural meme, or idea that “one’s sex is fluid and a matter of choice” is extremely damaging, especially to young people.

The idea that one’s sexuality is a feeling and not a biological fact “is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges,” said Dr. McHugh in his article, “Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme.”

“I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real,” said Dr. McHugh, who is also professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins. “I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims.”

“Think, for example, of the parents whom no one—not doctors, schools, nor even churches—will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald,” warned McHugh.The Obama Administration’s quest to provide equal rights or civil rights to Sexual Conditions, that might be psychological or sociological in origin, and that until the 1980’s, were considered abnormal, that is, out of the confines of society’s view of what is normal, in an effort to “normalize” the actions of a very tiny minority of the American people, has succeeded to not only further dividing our nation, but also, in the case of allowing biological males access to public women’s restrooms, is endangering American women and children, as well.

Unfortunately for Liberal Democrats, including the Outgoing President of the United States of America, who had his Attorney General file a lawsuit against North Carolina, the overwhelming majority of the American People stand with that state and the state of Mississippi, which has passed a simular law.

The opinions of the Liberal Minority of Americans, including celebrities who have cancelled concerts in those States over this issue and have given their unsolicited two cents worth to the cause, hold less weight with the majority of Americans than a bubble gum wrapper in a barrel of water.

Average Americans have been raised to know the difference between right and wrong.

What the Obama Administration attempted, in terms of changing America from the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, into the Land of the Sheep and the Home of the Morally Ambivalent, turned out to be not as easy as they thought it would be…

…as the results of the 2016 Presidential Election plainly showed.

America is not Europe. We never will be.

Thank God.

Obama and the rest of the Far Left Democratic Party have never understood that Americans are an Exceptional People.

We go our own way.

However, Americans will unite in a common cause, when our Right to “Life, Liberty,and the Pursuit of Happiness” is threatened and we believe that we are facing a situation in which we must unite to stand against something that we believe is wrong.

If you don’t believe me, please look at the overwhelming response on Social Media to this idiotic, tone-deaf quest by the Obama Administration to radically change our nation.

They can ridicule us.They can file lawsuits against us. But, they cannot force us to accept something which we believe is not right and which violates the safety and privacy of American Women and children.

If my wife, daughter, or daughter-in-law are in a public restroom, and I see what is obviously a man wearing a dress attempt to enter that rest room, I will stop him. It is my right as an American to protect the women in my family. I would do the same for American women whom I do not know. You cannot make what is wrong, a “Constitutional Right”.

The Obama Administration, in an effort to continue his “radical changing” of America, before his final term as President ends, is now filing lawsuits against American States which have refused to participate in the slippery slope which Obama is demanding that we all take a ride on.

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday sued North Carolina to get it to abandon a law that restricts use of public restrooms, further escalating a fight over the rights of transgender Americans.

Hours earlier, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and the state’s secretary of public safety had sued the agency for declaring the law a civil rights violation, accusing it of “baseless and blatant overreach.”

In March, North Carolina became the first state in the country to ban people from using multiple occupancy restrooms or changing rooms in public buildings and schools that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said the department also “retains the option” of curtailing federal funding to North Carolina over the issue.

“None of us can stand by when a state enters the business of legislating identity and insists that a person pretend to be something or someone that1 they are not,” said Lynch, comparing the measure to Jim Crow-era racial discrimination laws and bans on same-sex marriage.

“We’re taking the Obama admin to court. They’re bypassing Congress, attempting to rewrite law & policies for the whole country, not just NC,” McCrory, a Republican, wrote on Twitter.

McCrory told reporters that North Carolina leaders had been forced to pass the law, known as HB 2, after the Charlotte city council passed an ordinance requiring access to bathrooms based on gender identity in public as well as private buildings.

The Republican leaders of North Carolina’s state legislature also sued the U.S. government over the law on Monday, hours after McCrory’s lawsuit.

Please allow me to summarize this article: the Attorney General of the United States is filing a lawsuit, on behalf of the president of United States comma against the state of North Carolina, for not allowing individuals who are still biologically men, to walk into women’s public restrooms, drop their pants or pull up their dresses,and use the facilities as if they were a woman, invading the privacy of American women and children.

On top of that, Lynch compared the “Rights” of the “Transgendered” to the Civil Rights Struggle.

The problem is, according to at least one of the leading experts in Psychiatry in the whole world, Transgenderism is NOT a physical condition, like skin pigmentation.

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and former psychiatrist–in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital, who has studied transgendered people for 40 years, said it is a scientific fact that “transgendered men do not become women, nor do transgendered women become men.”

All such people, he explained in an article for The Witherspoon Institute, “become feminized men or masculinized women, counterfeits or impersonators of the sex with which they ‘identify.’”

Dr. McHugh, who was psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital for 26 years, the medical institute that had initially pioneered sex-change surgery – and later ceased the practice – stressed that the cultural meme, or idea that “one’s sex is fluid and a matter of choice” is extremely damaging, especially to young people.

The idea that one’s sexuality is a feeling and not a biological fact “is doing much damage to families, adolescents, and children and should be confronted as an opinion without biological foundation wherever it emerges,” said Dr. McHugh in his article, “Transgenderism: A Pathogenic Meme.”

“I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real,” said Dr. McHugh, who is also professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins. “I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims.”

“Think, for example, of the parents whom no one—not doctors, schools, nor even churches—will help to rescue their children from these strange notions of being transgendered and the problematic lives these notions herald,” warned McHugh.

The Obama Administration’s quest to provide equal rights or civil rights to Sexual Conditions, that might be psychological or sociological in origin, and that until the 1980’s, were considered abnormal, that is, out of the confines of society’s view of what is normal, in an effort to “normalize” the actions of a very tiny minority of the American people, has succeeded to not only further dividing our nation, but also, in the case of allowing biological males access to public women’s restrooms, is endangering American women and children, as well.

Unfortunately for Attorney General Lynch and her boss, President Barack Hussein Obama, the overwhelming majority of the American People stand with North Carolina and the state of Mississippi, which has passed a simular law.

The opinions of the Liberal Minority of Americans, including celebrities who have cancelled concerts in those States over this issue and have given their unsolicited two cents worth to the cause, hold less weight with the majority of Americans than a bubble gum wrapper in a barrel of water.

Average Americans have been raised to know the difference between right and wrong.

What the Obama Administration is attempting, in terms of changing America from the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, into the Land of the Sheep and the Home of the Morally Ambivalent, is turning out to be not as easy as they thought it would be.

America is not Europe. We never will be.

Thank God.

Obama and Liberal Minions have never understood that Americans are an Exceptional People.

We go our own way.

However, Americans will unite in a common cause, when our Right to “Life, Liberty,and the Pursuit of Happiness” is threatened and we believe that we are facing a situation in which we must unite to stand against something that we believe is wrong.

If you don’t believe me, please look at the overwhelming response on Social Media to this idiotic, tone-deaf quest by the Obama Administration to radically change our nation.

They can ridicule us.They can file lawsuits against us. But, they cannot force us to accept something which we believe is not right and which violates the safety and privacy of American Women and children.

If my wife, daughter, or daughter-in-law are in a public restroom, and I see what is obviously a man wearing a dress attempt to enter that rest room, I will stop him. It is my right as an American to protect the women in my family. I would do the same for American women whom I do not know. You cannot make what is wrong, a “Constitutional Right”.

Jillian T. Weiss, a professor of law and society at Ramapo College of New Jersey and founder of a firm that represents transgender people who have experienced discrimination, is executive director of the National Transgender Bar Association now in formation. The following is an excerpt of a colum tittled “Federal law dooms transgender bathroom bans’, which was published yesterday in USA Today.

North Carolina recently became the first U.S. state to mandate discrimination against transgender people by statute, banning them from using bathrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity in government buildings and schools. The new law also guts protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Charlotte and nine other municipalities.

This move and similar ones in other states are terrible signals of intolerance, but beyond that they make absolutely no sense. North Carolina started feeling an economic backlash so quickly that Gov. Pat McCrory signed an executive order Tuesday in an attempt to soften the message sent by the law, though the order has little impact on the law itself.

Then there’s McCrory’s reason for overriding the municipal ordinances — that the city of Charlotte committed “government overreach and intrusion” by saying transgender customers of private businesses had the right to use whatever restroom seemed appropriate. That is in one sense a demand on those businesses. But looked at another way, McCrory was suggesting that Charlotte had overstepped its governmental role by reducing restrictions on restroom use. If this seems illogical to you, join the club.

What makes state laws like these even more irrational is that transgender people are currently protected by federal law. They are protected in their use of gender-conforming bathrooms in schools by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The Occupational Safety and Health Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 have been interpreted to cover gender-appropriate restrooms in the workplace. There are constitutional provisions requiring equal protection of the law and a due process right to privacy that apply to state laws restricting access to public accommodations. And the Affordable Care Act protects people in medical facilities.

Even so, 44 bills targeting the LGBT community were introduced in state legislatures in the first three months of 2016. The Republican National Committee has called for these actions. These statewide attempts to make an end run around federal law, using irrational fear-mongering to vilify an already vulnerable population, have already resulted in a federal lawsuit in North Carolina.

Ever since the states of North Carolina and Mississippi passed laws effectively barring “transgendered” people from using public restrooms of the opposite “biological sex”, in support of traditional American Morals and Vales, there has been an epic attempt by “The Smartest and Most Tolerant People in the Room” to blackmail corporations into protesting the states’ efforts, through public proclamation of their displeasure with Americans in the Heartland standing up for themselves.

Exactly, how large is the “Transgendered Population” in the United States of America?

If you listen to those, including President Barack Hussein Obama and his Administration, who are fighting so fervently for “Transgendered Rights”, you would think that the percentage of our overall population MUST be somewhere in the double digits.

You would be wrong.

Transgendered Americans actually only number somewhere around 700,000, about 0.3 percent of U.S. adults.

I suppose that the “coming out” of Former Olympic Decathalon and Reality TV Star Bruce Jenner as her new Transgendered Persona, “Caitlyn”, started the snowball down the hill.

However, as I wrote in the time, I think that it could possibly be nothing but a publicity stunt, for two reasons.

Nothing that he/she/it has done to him/her/itself is irreversible. He still has his male sexual organ.

He/she/it has publicly stated that he/she/it still prefers women.

I wonder if the sales of Wheaties suffered after his/her/its big announcement?

But, I digress…

In researching today’s post, I found several articles in the Main Stream Media and Liberal websites, such as mediamatters.org, lauding how peaceful, wonderful, and harmless Transgendered People are, and how we “Right-wing Hatemongers” and our stated concern about the safety of our wives, girlfriends, and daughters is overblown.

Then, I found articles detailing the problems that American Prisons have been facing, for over 10 years, in dealing with the Transgendered Criminals, who are incarcerated in their facilities.

And, of course, the reports about perverts exposing themselves in public bathrooms, are common on every city’s Police Blotter.

Why the push to accommodate the “gender Identity” of .03 % of our population, while simultaneously disrespecting the privacy and advocating a threat to the safety of American women and children?

I propose to you, gentle reader, that this is a part of the continued effort to sublimate Traditional American Values, and even, American Exceptionalism, for the “Good of the State”, in Liberals/Progressives’ ongoing quest to bring America down to the same level as the Socialist Democrat Failures of Europe.

The other day, I had a fellow write attempt to justify these multiple-stall “Unisex” Public Restrooms as being “normal”, because “Europe has had them for years”.

I, attempting to control my incredulity, answered him, by explaining that America is not Europe. 75% of Americans still proclaim themselves to be Christians, while Europe has abandoned both their Faith and their backbones, and are being invaded by Muslims, who are bringing their Sharia Law, with them.

You often hear of the activists, who are a part of the 24% of Americans, who identify themselves as “Liberals”, referred to as the “Hive-mind”, because most of the time, they present themselves in public and on the internet, including Facebook Political Pages, as being in lockstep with one another, regurgitating “the Party Line”, about each and every Hot Button Political Issue, resembling the brainwashed Proletariat of the old Soviet Union.

The actions of North Carolina and Mississippi, goes against the unified thought process of Liberals. American Individual Freedom of Thought and Traditional Morality and Value System of America, instilled in the majority of Americans, by American Christianity.

Traditional American Morality and Values are a roadblock to Progressives’ Plans, as regards to the “Good of the State”.

So, when you see Liberals Musicians like Bruce Stringsteen and Bryan Adams cancel concerts in North Carolina and Mississippi, and Corporations expressing their “concerns” of the passage of these laws, it is all a part of a concerted effort to get us “all in line”.

Unfortunately for those who expouse the “singularity of thought” of the Hive-mind, they will never win.

We are Americans. We cherish our Faith, our Families, and our Freedom of Thought.

With all the chaos going on in this nation right now, at the top of the “brush fire” issues is Abortion. To say that Americans are divided over the issue is an understatement.

The focal point, for both Pro-Life Americans, such as myself, and Anti-Life or Abortion supporters, is Austin, Texas, where the state legislature is about to pass a bill which would ban late-term abortions.

At issue are identical House and Senate bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, require that the procedure be performed at ambulatory surgical centers, mandate that doctors who perform abortions obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and that even nonsurgical abortions take place in a surgical center.

Only five out of 42 clinics in Texas qualify as ambulatory surgical centers, and they are in major metropolitan areas. Many clinics would need to relocate to meet ventilation requirements and to have the space required for operating rooms and hallways.

Opponents of the bill say the new requirements are unnecessary and would force most Texas abortion clinics to close. Supporters of the bills say they want to reduce access to abortion and improve women’s health care. Texas health officials report that 72,240 abortions performed in the state in 2011, including 374 that happened after 20 weeks.

The 20-week ban is based on the scientifically disputed claim that a fetus can feel pain by that point and thus, deserves protection from abortion.

Additionally, the state legislature in North Carolina have included similar restrictions in a pending bill which would also ban Sharia Law.

Needless to say, Liberals are losing the minds and, are seemingly, busing Pro-Abortion Protesters in from all across the country to both state capitals.

And, Planned Parenthood is in the middle of all of these “activists”, of course.

With the Texas House debate as a backdrop, Planned Parenthood kicked off a state-wide bus tour at the Texas Capitol Tuesday morning.

The tour began with a rally and a sea of signs in orange, blue, white and black. Thousands represented two sides of the same issue of abortion regulations in Texas and how they would impact women.

Lesli Simms has been to hearings and testimony since the debate began.

“Women of color, lower income women and women who are working a second or third job cannot be here today. That’s just a simple fact. But I can and I will be here every day that I’m required,” Simms said.

She told KVUE that she spent her 22nd birthday witnessing what turned out to be a historic night in the Texas Senate.

“That filibuster though was more than a single event to block a bad bill,” said Senator Wendy Davis of Fort Worth, who delivered the filibuster that prevented a vote on the abortion bill in the first special session. “It was an expression of democracy in action and a clear signal that Texans [had] had enough.”

The Pro-Abortion crowd, outside the Capitol Building in Austin, Texas ,, or, “worshipers of Molech”, as I like to call them, last week were chanting “Hail, Satan!” and “Jesus should have been Aborted.” Yesterday, they were chanting “F!@k the Church!”

In protest, more than 2,000 people gathered at the state capitol on Monday night, the largest gathering since the regular Moral Monday rallies began. And 64 pink-clad women’s health activists expressed their opposition to the proposed abortion restrictions by engaging in an act of civil disobedience, refusing to leave the legislative chamber and ultimately getting arrested.

Janet Colm, the president of Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, was one of those activists. As she explains in an op-ed, she decided to engage in civil disobedience in order to send a message to the anti-choice state legislators who insist on trying to restrict reproductive rights at every turn. “I want these politicians to see that with every attack, they are creating a fierce and ever stronger opposition,” Colm explained. “We’re making it impossible for politicians to ignore us, no matter how hard they try.”

Now, let me try to wrap my feeble old Southern Cracker mind around this…these women are protesting for the right to kill an innocent HUMAN BEING in their own womb!

Of course, you won’t hear these “activists” call those innocent lives babies, human beings, a life, a soul, a gift from God, or anything remotely resembling something that they should feel remorse about killing.

Heck, Pro-Abortionists are opposed to the taking of sonograms of the woman’s womb, before she has a abortion. They’re afraid that the “seed-carrier” will realize that IS a HUMAN BEING inside her, and will decide not to kill that baby.

Whenever there is a situation like this, when Liberals will not call “a spade a spade”, my mind, unique space between my ears that it is, flashes back to this famous scene between the late great Rodney Dangerfield, and the late , great Sam Kinison, in the movie Back to School. Kinison is a history professor, and Dangerfield is the successful businessman father of an under-achieving freshman, who decides to go back to school, to be there for his son.

Kinison: You remember that thing we had about thirty years ago… called the Korean conflict?

Yeah. Where we failed to achieve victory.

How come we didn’t cross the 38th parallel…and push those rice-eaters back to the Great Wall of China…and take it apart brick by brick…and nuke them back into the f!@#in’ stone age forever?

How come? Tell me? Why? Say it! Say it!

Dangerfield: All right, I’ll say it.

‘Cause Truman was too much of a p!@sy wimp…to let MacArthur go in and blow out those commie b!@#ards!

Kinison: Good answer. Good answer. I like the way you think. I’m gonna be watching you.

If Liberals, on both sides of the aisle, (because you cannot claim Conservatism, if you want to kill babies) would only perform a self-assessment, and come to the realization that the life inside a human mother’s womb, is in fact, a HUMAN BEING, and not “a bunch of cells,”, “a parasitic life form”, or “an inconvenience”, then abortion would go the way of the rotary telephone.

Unfortunately, though, when you have a president whose first act, upon obtaining the office, authorized money be sent to abortion clinics around the world, and who said,

Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information,

that probably is not going to happen anytime soon.

However, we can still pray for our nation’s unborn. And, keep fighting the good fight!

President Obama today announced that he now supports same-sex marriage, reversing his longstanding opposition amid growing pressure from the Democratic base and even his own vice president.

In an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts, the president described his thought process as an “evolution” that led him to this decision, based on conversations with his staff members, openly gay and lesbian service members, and his wife and daughters.

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama told Roberts in an interview to appear on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday.

Excerpts of the interview will air tonight on ABC’s “World News With Diane Sawyer” and “Nightline.”

The president stressed that this is a personal position, and that he still supports the concept of states’ deciding the issue on their own. But he said he’s confident that more Americans will grow comfortable with gays and lesbians getting married, citing his own daughters’ comfort with the concept.

Of course, this announcement came the day after North Carolina Voters overwhelmingly voted for a resolution declaring marriage to be “one man and one woman”, becoming the 31st state to pass such a law.

If you watched the MSM yesterday, you would have thought that this was the greatest announcement since Moses brought the tablets down from Mount Sinai.

One would have thought that Obama would have learned a lesson from both the North Carolina vote and the defeat of long-time Indiana Senator Richard Lugar.

Dark clouds had been gathering over Mr. Lugar for months after tea party groups made the elder statesman, a moderate Republican, their chief congressional target this year.

The GOP primary quickly turned into a nationally scrutinized showdown as the Club for Growth and other Mourdock supporters poured some $3 million into ads lambasting Mr. Lugar for voting for the automakers bailout and tax hikes over his six terms, while groups supporting Mr. Lugar spent half that.

Mr. Mourdock pounded his core message that the 80-year-old senator had turned into a Washington insider, slamming him for living away from Indiana for years, highlighting Mr. Lugar’s congenial relationship with Mr. Obama and criticizing the senator for voting to confirm Mr. Obama’s liberal Supreme Court nominees.

Suddenly, Mr. Lugar found himself struggling to defend things he once touted as accomplishments; among them, working with Democrats on foreign policy and earning the title of one of the two longest-serving Republicans in the Senate. Mr. Lugar and Mr. Hatch were both first elected in 1976.

In a blistering letter, written after his defeat, Sen. Lugar came off as a bitter, pompous, old RINO:

Ultimately, the re-election of an incumbent to Congress usually comes down to whether voters agree with the positions the incumbent has taken. I knew that I had cast recent votes that would be unpopular with some Republicans and that would be targeted by outside groups.

These included my votes for the TARP program, for government support of the auto industry, for the START Treaty, and for the confirmations of Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. I also advanced several propositions that were considered heretical by some, including the thought that Congressional earmarks saved no money and turned spending power over to unelected bureaucrats and that the country should explore options for immigration reform.

It was apparent that these positions would be attacked in a Republican primary. But I believe that they were the right votes for the country, and I stand by them without regrets, as I have throughout the campaign.

…Unfortunately, we have an increasing number of legislators in both parties who have adopted an unrelenting partisan viewpoint. This shows up in countless vote studies that find diminishing intersections between Democrat and Republican positions. Partisans at both ends of the political spectrum are dominating the political debate in our country. And partisan groups, including outside groups that spent millions against me in this race, are determined to see that this continues. They have worked to make it as difficult as possible for a legislator of either party to hold independent views or engage in constructive compromise. If that attitude prevails in American politics, our government will remain mired in the dysfunction we have witnessed during the last several years. And I believe that if this attitude expands in the Republican Party, we will be relegated to minority status. Parties don’t succeed for long if they stop appealing to voters who may disagree with them on some issues.

Legislators should have an ideological grounding and strong beliefs identifiable to their constituents. I believe I have offered that throughout my career. But ideology cannot be a substitute for a determination to think for yourself, for a willingness to study an issue objectively, and for the fortitude to sometimes disagree with your party or even your constituents. Like Edmund Burke, I believe leaders owe the people they represent their best judgment.

Too often bipartisanship is equated with centrism or deal cutting. Bipartisanship is not the opposite of principle. One can be very conservative or very liberal and still have a bipartisan mindset. Such a mindset acknowledges that the other party is also patriotic and may have some good ideas. It acknowledges that national unity is important, and that aggressive partisanship deepens cynicism, sharpens political vendettas, and depletes the national reserve of good will that is critical to our survival in hard times. Certainly this was understood by President Reagan, who worked with Democrats frequently and showed flexibility that would be ridiculed today – from assenting to tax increases in the 1983 Social Security fix, to compromising on landmark tax reform legislation in 1986, to advancing arms control agreements in his second term.

Except that, Reagan, in the end, would always stand behind Conservative principles. Lugar spent his career reaching across the aisle and patting himself on the back at the same time.

Obama should have paid attention to what was happening around him yesterday.

Last night, the voters of the Tar Heel State joined the citizens of 30 other American states in making their voices heard plainly and clearly on an issue that President Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmmm) is avoiding like the plague.

North Carolina voters have approved a constitutional amendment defining marriage solely as a union between a man and a woman, making it the 30th U.S. state to adopt such a ban.

With 35 percent of precincts reporting Tuesday, unofficial returns showed the amendment passing with about 58 percent of the vote to 42 percent against.

In the days before the vote, members of President Barack Obama’s cabinet expressed support for gay marriage and former President Bill Clinton recorded phone messages urging voters to reject the amendment

Meanwhile, supporters ran their own ad campaigns and church leaders urged Sunday congregations to vote for the amendment. The Rev. Billy Graham was featured in full-page newspaper ads supporting the amendment.

So, what does the “Leader of the Free World” say about the controversial subject?

Don’t ask. He won’t tell.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan broke ranks with the White House on Monday, stating his unequivocal support for same-sex marriage one day after Vice President Joe Biden suggested that he supported gay marriage as well.

Obama aides worked to manage any political fallout. They said the back-to-back remarks by two top administration officials represented personal viewpoints and were not part of a coordinated effort to lay groundwork for a shift in the president’s position. Obama aides also tried to use the latest flare-up in the gay-marriage debate to shine a light on GOP rival Mitt Romney’s history of equivocating on some gay-rights issues, an attempt to turn a potential political problem into an opportunity.

Obama, who supports most gay rights, has stopped short of backing gay marriage. Without clarification, he’s said for the past year and a half that his personal views on the matter are “evolving.”

The White House held firm on Monday to that position, which polls show puts the president increasingly at odds with his party and the majority of Americans on gay marriage. But with Biden and Duncan’s comments reinvigorating the debate, Obama is likely to face renewed pressure to clarify his views ahead of the November election.

Throughout his first term, he has sought to walk a fine line on same-sex marriage. He’s trying to satisfy rank-and-file Democrats by supporting a range of gay rights issues without alienating crucial independent voters who could be turned off by the emotional social issue.

The president’s aides acknowledge that his position can be confusing. In states where gay marriage already is legal, the president says married gay couples should have the same rights as married straight couples. But he does not publicly support the right of gay couples to enter into a marriage in the first place.

Duncan, a longtime friend of the president as well as a member of his Cabinet, made clear Monday that his position on gay marriage was not in lockstep with the White House. Asked in a television interview whether he believed gay couples should legally be allowed to marry, Duncan said simply, “Yes, I do.”

His comments followed Biden’s assertion Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

Obama aides said Duncan was speaking about his personal views on the issue and was not under orders from the White House or the campaign to take his position.

As for Biden, White House and campaign officials said the vice president’s remarks were no different from what he and Obama have said in the past.

“They were entirely consistent with the president’s position, which is that couples who are married, whether they are gay or heterosexual couples are entitled to the very same rights and very same liberties,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign. “When people are married, we ought to recognize those marriages.”

So, what is the president’s position? Jay Carney, WH Press Secretary, was asked that during yesterday’s daily press briefing, per politico.com.

Pay attention to this dance recital. Fred Astaire would be proud.

Q: On the gay marriage issue, Jay, has the intensity of interest in this and the statements from some of the President’s supporters led him to consider clarifying his position? And considering that his views are evolving, does he want to maybe consider his views more thoroughly?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I don’t have a readout of any conversations involving the President on that issue. I can tell you that I’m sure it is the case that he will be asked again at some point when he gives interviews or press conferences about this issue, and I’ll leave it to him to describe his personal views.

I think it’s important to note, as I attempted to do yesterday, that what is abundantly clear is this President’s firm commitment to the protection of and securing of the same rights and obligations for LGBT citizens as other Americans enjoy. He has been a strong proponent of LGBT rights, and I think that’s demonstrated by his record, which is unparalleled, as President in support of those rights.

Q: Jay, you said yesterday on this issue in reference to Vice President Biden’s remarks and the President’s, that the President’s personal views obviously were evolving, and you stressed the personal views. I guess is there maybe a disconnect between his policies and his personal views in terms of maybe his policies are ahead of his personal views on this?

MR. CARNEY: No, I don’t think so. I think the President’s absolute commitment to the rights of LGBT citizens demonstrated by the path he took to ensure the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the opposition that he and his administration have expressed towards DOMA and the fact that he believes it ought to be repealed. It is also the case that the President and the Attorney General believe that Section 3 of DOMA is unconstitutional, which is why the federal government no longer defends Section 3. And from hate crimes legislation to hospital visitation rights, the list of accomplishments is quite long and I think demonstrates his feelings about, broadly, this issue.

Q: Do you think he’ll talk about it with Cuomo considering he’s received a lot of plaudits from the LGBT community?

MR. CARNEY: Well, I think — I don’t know what their conversations will contain. I know that they’ll focus on the issue that the President has come to discuss in upstate New York. I think the President has taken a position on some of these state issues, and I think he did on New York and he has in North Carolina. And I think the position he takes has — the positions he has taken are consistent with his belief that it is wrong to take actions that would deny rights to LGBT citizens or rescind rights already provided to LGBT Americans. And that’s a position that you can fully expect him to maintain.

Since when has marriage been a right?

I’ve never seen the word “marriage” listed in the Constitution under “inalienable rights”, nor in the Bill of Rights itself.

With 62% of America’s population (31 states) voting against Gay Marriage, I believe other Americans haven’t either.

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

The interview will air on Thursday’s Good Morning America.

After all, the American public’s opinion doesn’t mean squat to “The Lightbringer”.

During a speech given Wednesday in Mount Holly, North Carolina, at the Daimler Truck Manufacturing Plant, President Barack Hussein Obama remarked, as reported by The Weekly Standard:

Looks like somebody might’ve fainted up here, have we got . . . Somebody . . . EMS . . . Somebody . . Don’t worry about it: Folks do this all the time in my meetings. You always got to eat before you stand for a long time–that’s a little tip. They’ll be OK, just make sure–give them a little room.

If you haven’t heard about the whoppers he told in this speech, you had better sit down…you’re probably going to faint, too.

Now, here’s the thing, though — this is not the first time we’ve seen gas prices spike. It’s been happening for years. Every year, about this time, gas starts spiking up, and everybody starts wondering, how high is it going to go? And every year, politicians start talking when gas prices go up. They get out on the campaign trail — and you and I both know there are no quick fixes to this problem — but listening to them, you’d think there were.

As a country that has 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves, but uses 20 percent of the world’s oil — I’m going to repeat that — we’ve got 2 percent of the world oil reserves; we use 20 percent. What that means is, as much as we’re doing to increase oil production, we’re not going to be able to just drill our way out of the problem of high gas prices. Anybody who tells you otherwise either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or they aren’t telling you the truth.

Here is the truth. If we are going to control our energy future, then we’ve got to have an all-of-the-above strategy. We’ve got to develop every source of American energy — not just oil and gas, but wind power and solar power, nuclear power, biofuels. We need to invest in the technology that will help us use less oil in our cars and our trucks, in our buildings, in our factories. That’s the only solution to the challenge. Because as we start using less, that lowers the demand, prices come down. It’s pretty straightforward. That’s the only solution to this challenge.

And that’s the strategy that we’ve now been pursuing for the last three years. And I’m proud to say we’ve made progress.

Since I took office, America’s dependence on foreign oil has gone down every single year. In fact, in 2010, it went under 50 percent for the first time in 13 years.

You wouldn’t know it from listening to some of these folks out here — (laughter) — some of these folks — (laughter) — but a key part of our energy strategy has been to increase safe, responsible oil production here at home. Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than any time in the last eight years. Under my administration, we’ve quadrupled the number of operating oilrigs to a record high. We’ve got more oilrigs operating now than we’ve ever seen. We’ve opened up millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration. We’ve approved more than 400 drilling permits that follow new safety standards after we had that mess down in the Gulf.

We’re approving dozens of new pipelines. We just announced that we’ll do whatever we can to speed up construction of a pipeline in Oklahoma that’s going to relieve a bottleneck and get more oil to the Gulf — to the refineries down there — and that’s going to help create jobs, encourage more production.

So these are the facts on oil production. If somebody tells you we’re not producing enough oil, they just don’t know the facts.

But how much oil we produce here at home, because we only have 2 percent and we use 20, that’s not going to set the price of gas worldwide, or here in the United States. Oil is bought and sold on the world market. And the biggest thing that’s causing the price of oil to rise right now is instability in the Middle East. You guys have been hearing about what’s happening with Iran; there are other oil producers that are having problems. And so people have gotten uncertain. And when uncertainty increases, then sometimes you see speculation on Wall Street that drives up gas prices even more.

But here’s the thing. Over the long term, the biggest reason oil prices will go up is there’s just growing demand in countries like China and India and Brazil. There are a lot of people there. In 2010 alone, China added nearly 10 million cars on its roads. Think about that — 2010, 10 million new cars. People in China, folks in India, folks in Brazil — they’re going to want cars, too, as their standard of living goes up, and that means more demand for oil, and that’s going to kick up the price of oil worldwide. Those numbers are only going to get bigger over time.

So what does that mean for us? It means we can’t just keep on relying on the old ways of doing business. We can’t just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We’ve got to continually develop new sources of energy.

And that’s why we’ve made investments that have nearly doubled the use of clean, renewable energies in this country. And thousands of Americans have jobs because of it. It also means we’ve got to develop the resources that we have that are untapped, like natural gas. We’re developing a near hundred-year supply of natural gas -– and that’s something that we expect could support more than 600,000 jobs by the end of the decade.

And that’s why we’ve worked with the private sector to develop a high-tech car battery that costs half as much as other batteries and can go up to 300 miles on a single charge. Think about that. That will save you some money at the pump. And that is why we are helping companies like this one right here and plants like this one right here to make more cars and trucks that use less oil.

Still trying to line the pockets of your “investors”, huh, Mr. President? I’m all for future progress, but what you’re proposing does nothing to deal with the reality of average American not being able to afford to fill up their gas tanks, in order to make it to their jobs.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Nowhere in the Oath of Office do I see the words:

“I will line the pockets of my friends and investors, now matter how it ruins America’s economy or impacts its citizens.”